The music program at my school is recovering from several years of being disregarded due to a constant rotation of teachers, the pandemic affecting enrollment, and budget cuts. Since coming into the position, we have managed to increase our section size by two, which puts us at eight classes. This was the first year that they hired a second Music teacher to teach the additional sections.
I have definitely seen a decrease in funding and support for Music programming, but it appears to be a board-wide issue that affects all Arts programs. We receive designated funding which I did not fully understand the ins-and-outs of until I became interim department head, because we have to share our budget with the Drama and Visual Arts classes. Being a consumable department already puts us at a disadvantage but having to share our budget with other departments and have it decrease each year is frustrating.
My administration and I are constantly advocating for increased funding support with the board but have not come to any resolutions yet. This week we received our instrument repair budget allocations and it was lower than what we received last year. While the board says these funds are supposed to supplement the school departmental budget, it is hard to rationalize using a budget that we have to split three ways already, to repair instruments.
In the meantime, we are continuing to promote our department by showcasing what we do through performances, both in-school and to the community. The more enrolment we have in our classes, the more we can demonstrate to the board that funding is necessary in order to have these programs run successfully.
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